


(Naive Melody)

by Helsabot



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Romantic Friendship, dumb fluffy love ultimately, ghosts maybe?????????????????, obscured ennui
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 13:11:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17224685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helsabot/pseuds/Helsabot
Summary: Ryan’s life is nothing like a story. He tries to form it into something streamline, something meaningful, memorable, and marketable—In truth, it is simply a long string of moments.





	(Naive Melody)

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote a small, silly piece called "Weird". It was a simple little window into an imagined world where two dudes working at BuzzFeed, Inc. have a super close, loving, and totally non-sexual relationship. Then I thought I'd make it into more than that. Because I'm bored and shameless. But please consider that vignette as a standalone; interpret it whichever way you wish.
> 
> I feel weird about RPS. Very weird. Please understand that these characters are fictional. They're based on real, live people, and I can't make any excuses for that... but I've taken their personalities and molded them into fantasy. I'm not sure if that makes it any more forgivable. But, yeah. I did it. And here it is. Whatever. I might as well. Life is short and nights are long. Onward!
> 
> (Side note: Franklin Castle is real and awesome. Google it. So is the Hotel Conneaut. I stayed in a suite where a woman died, and someone who was nobody knocked on our door at 3AM. I'm a Shaniac who wants to believe.)

Stories are supposed to have beginnings, middles, and ends. Ryan remembers the word _denouement_ from a tenth grade English class; remembers a squeaky, arching line swooped across a whiteboard:

There is a protagonist, a setting, an “inciting incident” (extra points for alliteration); conflict, struggle, resolution. Open ends are meant to be stitched together cleverly, and characters are meant to return home changed in some stunning, significant way (quadruple points here).

And, of course, this was drilled, nearly painfully — don’t use too many commas, it’s inelegant and bulky — deep, deep, deep into his brain at college.

Sometimes he thinks about this when editing. Sometimes he thinks about it when he finally shuts his computer down, is the last to lock up. When he’s the last to count how many black gum-spots it takes to get to his car. Worrying that some figure might rough him up. He’s small, after all.

Ryan’s life is nothing like a story. He tries to form it into something streamline, something meaningful, memorable, and marketable—

In truth, it is simply a long string of moments.

 

 

—

 

 

Siri guides them to Conneaut, Ohio. Which is not Conneaut, Pennsylvania. 

Ryan buries his face in the steering wheel. “Fuck _me_ , dude…”

“Well,” states Shane diplomatically. There ya go.”

“How many fucking _Conneaut_ s can possibly exist!”

“Two. Two exist.”

“Shut up.”

They’d been in Cleveland to check out Franklin Castle. The mansion had seen plenty of death over the years, was possibly home to Nazis at one point, and was bought by Judy Garland’s fifth husband in the eighties. It was found to have a literal skeleton in one of its closets. Well, _allegedly_. Shane kept pushing that word on Ryan.

 _It was in the_ paper _, dude!_ Ryan had argued. _In the nineties! This isn’t, like, folklore!_

_Yeeeaaaahhh_ , said Shane. _People said a lot of things in the nineties._

The woman who owns it now — a pleasant Italian artist in her late fifties — had given them permission to film and sleep in the bricked building overnight. They hadn’t gotten much rest, as usual, and they hadn’t encountered anything overtly significant. There were the odd creaks and subtle squeaks, but even Ryan had to admit that sort of stuff was to be expected from a house built in eighteen eighty-one. There were a few other things, though… things that could have been whispers (Ryan was eager to listen to the audio recordings, later) and things that seemed to move in the dark (though that could have just been his eyes and brain trying to make sense of the darkness, as Shane had purported).

Mostly, though, there was a feeling. A feeling of… what, exactly? You can’t film a feeling. You can’t see it, or hold it. It was fucking frustrating, because a _feeling_ isn’t evidence; not to anyone outside of Ryan’s own head. Fuck.

“Do you think Taco Bell is worse in Ohio?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Taco Bell will give you the shits anywhere.”

“See, people _say_ that — but I’ve never had a bad experience with TaBe. I’ve heard they’re one of the healthiest fast food places, actually. I mean, as healthy as fast food can be. They use better ingredients.”

“What the fuck is _tah-bey_?”

“TaBe. Taco Bell.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It hasn’t caught on yet. I’ve been working on it. Give it a week, you’ll see.”

“A week, huh.”

In the end, they stop at the Taco Bell the rest stop sign had advertised. It’s nestled among a throng of pine trees, which is just super weird for some reason. As far as Ryan knows, Taco Bells are meant for concrete intersections.

Shane orders a steak Quesarito, but gets ground beef instead. Ryan goes to town on three Supreme tacos, plus one regular taco.

“I mean, I definitely said _steak_.”

“It’s probably ‘cause it’s one in the morning, dude. And they’re out of steak, or they just didn’t want to make it.”

“Or because that kid at the window was really, _really,_ high.”

“Or because he was high, yeah.”

“Or because Ohio doesn’t know what steak is.”

“Isn’t steak, like, a midwest thing?”

Shane barks out a laugh. “Since when?”

“Since… _cows?_ I don’t know, dude, where— where’s Philadelphia?”

“Not here.”

“But— isn’t it—” Ryan cuts himself off, scratches at the nape of his neck.

“Ryan,” says Shane. And that gangly caricature of a man turns to him in the dark of the rental car, lit by a single sodium light.

Shane looks weird with his glasses, sometimes. Ryan wonders if his own glasses look weird, sometimes. Does Shane think his glasses look weird?

“What?”

“Do you know where Philadelphia is?”

Honestly, he doesn’t. Fuck off, anyway. He’s an Orange County kid. How’s he supposed to know where Philadelphia is?

“Eat your fucking steak.”

“It’s not steak. That was the whole point.”

“Shut up. Whatever. Shut up.”

“You’re thinking of cheesesteak. That’s a sandwich. That’s a whole different bag of shrimp.”

“Shut the fuck up, Shane.”

“That was a charming lil’ saying. There’s no shrimp in it.”

“I’m going to hurt you.”

“It could be my imagination, but I feel like it’s just a _liiiiiiiittle_ less spicy than in LA.”

“These tacos taste exactly the same.”

“I dunno.” Shane squints into dark of the tall trees that press up against the parking lot. “There’s something… different.”

“It’s _ground beef_ , and you never get ground beef Quesaritos. _That’s_ what’s different.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

They eat in relative silence, going through every plastic-y napkin they were given. Shane accidentally takes a sip of Ryan’s drink.

“ _Uuughh,_ dude.” Ryan pulls the straw out, flips it, and jabs it back in.

“You just dunked all my cooties into your Coke.”

“Yeah, but at least I’m not, like, kissing you every time I take a sip.”

Shane laughs in the gradual, stuttering way he does when something Ryan says doesn’t make sense to him. “What? Okay. You could’ve just taken the top off and thrown it away with the straw. Or you could’ve just sucked it up — _lit-er-all-y sucked it up_ — like a normal person. But, okay. I guess I’m really, really gross.”

“I like straws.”

“Yeah, you _really_ like straws.”

After they’ve finished eating, Ryan gathers their garbage and dumps it in a trashcan outside the adjacent gas station. He pauses, then pushes aside his pride and steps inside to ask the attendant how far Pennsylvania is.

The man blinks, looking a little concerned. “Two miles that way,” he says, tossing a thumb over his shoulder.

Oh.

_Oh._

“Oh. Hah. Uh, thanks.”

When he returns to the car, Shane is fiddling with Ryan’s phone. Ryan has a moment of defensiveness, but it passes instantly; honestly, there’s nothing on his iPhone that he wouldn’t mind Shane seeing. But how does he know his passcode?

“It’s only about a forty-five minute drive from here. That’s not bad.”

“Wh— but Pennsylvania’s literally right next to us?”

“Yeah, but Conneaut’s south. It’ll take longer if we take the twenty to the six. We should take the seven to the one-sixty-seven to the one nintety-eight, to the…” Shane swipes through map. “…trust me.”

“Just put Siri on again. And type in Conneaut, _Pennsylvania_. Type in the actual fucking address.”

“Your wish,” Shane thumbs the address out, “is my command.”

Siri says:

“ _Staring route to one-two-two-four-one Lake Street_.”

 

 

—

 

 

They arrive around 2:15 am. The woman they’ve awoken is none-too-happy.

“Geez,” Shane mumbles, low. “Whatever happened to the spirit of Tom Bodett?”

“Who’s Tom Bodett?”

“Who _— who’s Tom Bodett?_ I— ugh. You uncultured _swine_.”

Ryan feels silly lugging their equipment down the halls. The poor woman minding the lobby already had to deal with the rest of their crew, who of course were a little more careful with their GPS. And Shane just _had_ to play mini golf at that one exit.

“ _Sorry_ ,” Ryan apologizes again, and laughs nervously. The woman ushers them up the stairs curtly and heads back to wherever her bed is.

“I hate places with no elevators.”

“It’s an old hotel. You can’t expect it to have elevators.”

“Sure I can. It’s twenty-nineteen. They’ve had _years_ to put one in.”

“You really like elevators.”

“I love an elevator,” Shane shares amicably. “Almost as much as you love a straw.”

 

 

—

 

 

Okay, this is freaky. Even Shane admits it’s freaky. Sort of.

“Yeah, that’s, uhhhh— it’s unsettling.”

“ _Unsettling?!_ ”

Ryan had been brushing his teeth. Shane had been skimming and scoffing through the hotel lore they’d found in the nightstand.

“It’s not scary if it’s in a three-ring binder,” Shane had complained, flipping through the hotel’s history and purported sightings. “What is this, a fifth grade science report?”

Ryan peeked back into the main room as he worked at his teeth with the travel brush. Shane’s ridiculous legs ran the length of the bed and crossed at the ankles like lazy stick insects.

“It’s not scary if they can’t afford a color printer, either… or maybe it is. I guess black-and-white _is_ pretty spooky… okay, Ryan, you’ve convinced me. This place is _terrifying_.”

That’s when the knock had come at the door.

“Ryan. Door.”

“You ged id! Um bruh-him muh peef.”

“That’s so nice of you to say. I _am_ the smartest, most handsomest man in this hotel room.”

“ _Yur m’asshoe,_ ” Ryan had said.

Shane, relenting, threw the binder aside and got to his feet. “ _Who you callin’ a mass hoe!_ ”

Ryan had spat in the sink, run the taps — one for hot, one for cold — and cupped lukewarm water in his hands, wondering who the fuck was knocking at their door at three in the morning.

"Um,” came Shane’s voice.

Ryan swished the tap water around in his mouth and spat. Padding to the bathroom doorway and asking, discreetly, “Who is it?”

“You’ll probably want to come over here, Ry Guy.”

Which leads them to this moment. Where Ryan is staring out into an empty, silent hallway.

“…Fuck _this_ , dude, this is _way_ past _‘_ un _settling’!_ ”

Ryan slams the door shut and locks it. He swings the little door-latch-thing shut. He heads back into the bathroom to clean up his things, then remembers the reason they booked this room:

“ _Fuck_. Nope. Nope, no.” His fingers fumble with his folding toothbrush, and it clatters to the floor. He flees back to where Shane is standing.

“What is— what the fuck is wrong with you? Calm down.” Shane blinks down at Ryan, seeming to seriously consider him for a moment. “Why is it, whenever anything spooky happens to you, there’s a toothbrush involved? I think toothbrushes and hotel rooms are a bad combo for you. Maybe you should stay home forever and never brush your teeth again.”

“My dad’s a dentist. He would disown me.”

“Is that how you rebelled as a teenager? Skipped brushing your teeth for one night?”

Ryan holds his tongue.

“Oh my god. It is, isn’t it?”

“I will straight up set you on fire.”

“Jesus _christ_.”

 

 

—

 

 

That night, the stack of pillows between them becomes one stack too many.

“Let me— let me hit you with a thought. A theory.”

“A postulation?”

“Sure. Let me postulate at you.”

“Postulate away, baby.”

Ryan takes a large breath, and exhales:

“If it weren’t for the totally ingrained homophobia society’s beaten into us, we wouldn’t be building a pillow wall right now.”

Shane is quiet for a beat. Then, “Okay.”

Ryan shoots him a wide-eyed glance. “Like, I think it’s completely ridiculous that we do this. And then sleep as close to the edge of the bed as possible, on top of it. And only one of us is allowed to get under the covers!”

Shane’s eyebrows knit in genuine confusion. “I’ve never said that. That’s not a rule.”

“It’s unspoken, dude. But, like, what’s gonna happen? If my arm bumps your elbow in my sleep, is it gonna make us less manly? Is it gonna turn us gay?”

“It’ll turn my _el-_ bow gay!”

Ryan stifles a laugh; it’s the way Shane says “elbow” that gets him. The “el” climbs like a rollercoaster car and dips quickly and neatly into the “bow”. Shane says his “b”s funny. Shane says a lot of things funny. Sometimes the actual words aren’t funny at all, it’s just the way they come out.

Ryan pulls his great grin together like drapes against sunlight. “I’m serious.”

Shane shrugs. “Then let’s not build the pillow wall.”

“Yeah? And you’re not gonna be weird about it?”

“Why would I be weird about it?”

“Well I think it’s weird that we build the fucking pillow wall in the first place, and— and somehow the thought of _not_ building it is even weirder! And we’re _talking_ about it, dude, and _that’s_ making it weird!”

Shane shrugs again, just one shoulder this time. “ _You’re_ talking about it. But s’not weird.”

Ryan slips a frustrated laugh. “So you’re telling me, if we just forgo the pillow wall tonight, and we _don’t_ sleep on the edge of the bed like it’s a, a fucking _tightrope_ — you’re telling me you wouldn’t be weirded out.”

“ _Why_ would that be weird?” It’s Shane’s turn to laugh somewhat humorlessly, a plosive little sound. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I would _not_ find it weird? I don’t even know why we build the P.W., I just do it ‘cause you do it!”

“I only do it because _you_ do!”

“Well I didn’t start it!”

“Neither did _I!_ ”

“Well _some_ body started it.” Shane’s face goes slightly slack, like something subtle has occurred to him. He looks to the open door of the bathroom that a woman burned in seventy years ago. In a film noir detective voice, he calls out: “ _Elizabeth? Elizabeth, did_ you _start the P.W.?_ ”

“God, you’re an asshole. Okay, fine. So we won’t build the P.W., and you won’t be weirded out when I sleep up against you.”

Shane’s eyes widen. “Wait, what?”

Ryan didn’t think Shane’s eyes could even go that wide.

“ _See?!_ You’re weirded out!”

“We were just discussing the P.W.! Since when are you ‘ _sleeping up against’_ me?”

“Since I stepped inside this fucking hotel and got all the unholy shit scared out of me, that’s since when! You— I— see, _this_ is why—” Ryan gives up on his words and sighs, exasperated. He jabs an index finger downwards, at the mattress. “I _knew_ you would be weirded out!”

“Well you didn’t have to phrase it like _that_ ,” Shane says. “‘ _Sleep up against_ ’? That’s weird, man.”

“Well how else am I supposed to put it?!”

“Gee, I dunno, you could call it _cuddling_?”

Ryan’s jaw actually falls open. Like in a cartoon. Really.

“You’d prefer it if I told you I wanted to cuddle with you.”

“ _Yeah_ , actually. That’s a lot less weird than _sleeping up against_ me _._ That makes you sound… parasitic. That makes you sound like a… like you’re one of those, uh, snails. That you see on the glass in fishtanks at PetCo.”

Ryan can’t help it: he laughs at the image. Shane’s laughing, too.

“That’s what I am to you? A pet store snail?”

“Sure. You’re lookin’ at all the, uh, the cute lil’ goldfish, swimmin’ around, doin’ their thing, and then you just see the undercarriage of this _snail_ , and you’re thinking… who are _you_? What are _you_ doing here?”

Ryan wheezes. “Undercarriage?”

“Snail undercarriage. Snundercarriage.”

“So I’m…” Ryan’s brow screws up, his eyes looking for an answer somewhere on the ceiling. “…an aquatic snail who… shows up uninvited to parties? And exposes himself?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. The metaphor got away from me.”

“ _Yeah_ it did.”

“But you’re a snail.”

“Okay. Fine. I’m a snail. Those snails are symbiotic, by the way, not parasitic.”

“Showoff.”

“Anyway. Are we, uh. Agreed? No P.W. tonight?”

Shane shakes his head once, left-to-right, decisive. “No P.W. The P.W. is dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead as disco. Which I will _not_ stand for, by the way.”

“And the other thing?”

Shane pats the space beside him without hesitation. “C’mere, buddy.”

Ryan waits for the punchline. It doesn’t come.

“Really?”

“I promise it won’t be weird.”

They stare at each other for a good handful of seconds.

“It might be a little weird,” admits Ryan.

Shane nods. “It might be a little weird.”

They laugh, and Ryan settles down beside his friend.

And it isn’t even a _little_ weird.

 

 

—

 

 

“Ryan.”

“Huh.”

“I’m so fucking tired.”

“Okay, but, like— you can sleep.”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“’Fraid you’re gonna crash.”

Ryan chances a glance at the passenger’s seat: Shane is reclined halfway between alertness and total leisure. His eyelids hover at half-mast. There are no streetlights to strobe across his face here.

“It’s fine, dude. I’m fine.”

“Lemme drive.”

“Like _hell_ you’re gonna drive. You’re barely awake, and you are _not_ on the rental lease.”

Shane lets out a dismissive raspberry, his eyes giving into closing. “ _What_ , pray tell, sort of accident are we going to get into on a deserted two-lane road in the middle _bottom-fuck_ Ohio at four A.M.—” and _why_ do they always have to come and leave at the darkest of hours?

“ _Bottom-fuck?”_ questions Ryan.

“I’m being tactful.”

“ _Tact_ ful?”

“Mm.” Shane’s eyes have closed again. “‘Butt’ is too strong a word. Lookin’ out for our audience.”

“The GoPro’s not filming, dude.”

“I’m always on air, bay-bee. Did we find a motel yet?”

“We don’t need a motel. Anyway, why are you afraid I’m gonna crash if you think there’s no way we’re gonna crash?”

Shane is silent for an abnormally long stretch of time. Ryan thinks he’s finally drifting into dreaming.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Okay,” says Ryan. “Well. That’s appreciated.”

“I haven’t heard Siri say a word in years.”

It’s true. Whatever strange stretch between Pennsylvania and Ohio this is, it doesn’t have any reception whatsoever.

“Hey,” Ryan jokes, “Maybe we’ll end up in Conneaut, Ohio again!”

“I will put a fucking knife through Conneaut, Ohio.”

“Jesus, dude.”

“I want a bed.”

Ryan laughs. “You’ve got a bed, basically. Go to sleep.”

Shane uncrosses his arms, turns onto his left side, and wedges his hands beneath his cheek like a prayer. “I don’t know how, but this is way less comfy than a sleeping bag in a mental institution.”

“You’re just being fussy.”

“I hate the midwest.”

“You’re _from_ the midwest.”

“Mmm,” Shane hums, his eyes closed. “Chicago doesn’t count… hey Ryan, where’s Philadelphia?”

Their tires roll along several stretches of miles silently. Bugs flash before the headlights like summer snow.

“I don’t think this road _ends_ ,” admits Ryan, thirty minutes later.

“No shit.”

“This is purgatory.”

“No shit.”

Despite himself, something stirs in Ryan’s chest. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation. “Wait, are you serious?”

Shane has slipped further away. “…’bout what?”

“Do you believe in purgatory?”

“Oh my god,” breathes Shane. “It’s a figure of _speech_.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Don’t get existential on me. I’m too tired.”

“Okay.”

The road looks like that one Radiohead music video.

 

 

—

 

 

When they get home, they don’t see each other for a few days. They’ve worn each other out, Ryan supposes. He sleeps a lot. He sleeps little the first night, but twelve hours the second. He’s got generic Eszopiclone and brand-name Exhaustion to thank for that.

When he finally sees Shane at work, four days later, it feels weirdly professional.

"You get any rest?” he asks.

Shane looks as though he actually cannot process the question. Bastard.

“I went to San Diego.”

“Oh. Cool.”

It’s weird, when Ryan feels possessive of the time Shane doesn’t give him. He wonders what he was doing in San Diego. He wonders who he went there with, who he went to see. Maybe he went down there alone. That’s weird, too. The thought of Shane alone in a car. What does he do? Does he listen to music? Does he listen to podcasts? Does he listen to the radio? What happens when the radio fuzzes in and out? What happens in the silence?

What does he do in those quiet, solitary hours?

“It sucked.”

Ryan’s pulled from the hypnotizing start-up of his iMac. His eyes divert slightly; a giant yellow sticker yells “LOL” at him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” says Shane.

The day is ordinary, and it’s nice.

 

 


End file.
